


I'll follow the line that connects us two

by fangirling-feels (xGwenxVeerx)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fights, Fluff, Just Dance battles, M/M, Misunderstandings, Red String of Fate, i'm afraid i'm forgetting something with the tags, only chan can see the red strings attached to people's wrist, red strings are thought to be a myth, so please let me know if i should tag something, soonyoung and chan are brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-06-27 02:06:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xGwenxVeerx/pseuds/fangirling-feels
Summary: I’m stillWaiting for you, I’m not even tiredAlthough I’m getting scaredStill, I’m believing in timeBecause everyone says it’s medicineEven if I’m a fool, when I close my eyesNothing changes





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> FINALLY! The Chanhoon soulmate au is being posted!! I've been working on this for ages so I really hope that you all like this a lot!
> 
>  
> 
> Title taken from the lyrics of Run to You by Seventeen, summary taken from Don't Listen In Secret by Seventeen, I don't own either of these songs

When Chan first met Jihoon, he was just one of his brother, Soonyoung's friends.Though he wasn't taller than the rest of Soonyoung's friends, he still towered above Chan and he didn't dare say anything to him. Jihoon seemed unapproachable, someone who was way too cool to talk to, so Chan just decided not to say anything to him. 

 

Perhaps the thing that stood out to Chan most about Jihoon wasn’t that the he was his brother’s friend. It was the little red band tied around his left wrist, that eerily matched the one Chan had on his wrist.

 

He had never questioned why there was a red string tied around his wrist, simply because he thought it was just supposed to be there. Soonyoung had one, his parents had it. Theirs were even connected together, although Chan could only sometimes see the string that hung  in between them. 

 

Chan never questioned the presence of the red string, because he never had to.

 

But now there was a group of older boys  in his house and one of them had a red string around their wrist that seemed to be connected to him. Chan didn’t know what it meant, why it was there, or why it was connected to the scary friend of his brother. Chan had questions, but no answers and it was the first time he asked his parents about it. 

 

It was then, at the young age of nine, that his parents would tell him it was a wonder that he was able to see the red strings around his wrist. They told him the story of the red strings tied to people’s wrists. The stories of how those connected were meant to love each other unconditionally and how only few in society were able to see the strings that were tied to their own wrist. For Chan to not only be able to see the string on his own wrist, but also the ones on the wrists of other people was unheard of. There was a certain trust in his parents words, how they had instantly believed him when he had told them about the things he could see without asking him about it. It felt weird, wrong even, but Chan didn’t want to dwell on that feeling to much. It made him feel weird for feeling it in the first place.

Yet when his parents asked him why he had came to them with this, he couldn’t find it in himself to tell them the truth. Something inside stopped him from explaining to his parents that the only reason he started asking questions was because of the stranger  that wouldn't be a stranger anymore sometime soon at the other end of the string. 

 

It scared Chan to understand why they were connected, so instead of telling his parents the truth, he decided to say nothing. Instead, he told them that he had asked out of sheer curiosity. 

 

\---------

 

Growing up meant seeing Jihoon nearly daily, as he and Soonyoung hung out so often that Jihoon was practically  another part of the family. It wasn’t weird to hear their voices enter the house while Chan was doing his homework in the kitchen, most of the times accompanied by Soonyoung’s other friends that had decided to tag along that day. 

 

It was weird, seeing so many people gathered around him with strings all over the place. Ever since Chan had talked with his parents about the strings that he could see, they suddenly seemed so much more present than before. It was hard not to  notice those connected, even if the individuals didn’t, couldn’t know about it.

 

One of the things that Chan noticed growing up was that surprisingly, loads of his and Soonyoung’s friends were connected together. It wasn’t a foreign sight to see so many strings getting tangled up in each other whenever friends were  over, and Chan even noticed that it wasn’t a strange sight for his group of friends only. There had been many moments where Chan had seen a group of people together and he couldn’t quite make out the direction that the strings went in. It was more common than he thought for a group of friends to be connected through the strings. Chan had often wondered while growing up, as the world started to reveal the strings tied to other people’s wrists more and more, if it was just pure coincidence that people came together that were tied to each other by fate or if it was destined to be this way in the first place.

 

It didn’t matter, because Chan had no say in what went on with the universe, and he couldn’t change anything about the red strings. He had tried before, to untie them from his wrist so he would be free from them. It never worked. The strings didn’t want to get loose, and there had only been few moments where Chan could actually hold the strings between his fingers. Most of the times they weren’t really there, as his fingers seemed to go through them completely. 

 

It had frustrated Chan multiple times, but no matter how hard he tried, it never wanted to work. So he had given up on trying in the first place.

 

There had always been the thought at the back of his head that maybe he could change them, but that he was just unable to change his own. It scared him to think that he had the power to alter the life of others with a simple movement. 

 

He had never tried touching the string of others, had decided that it was too dangerous if it went wrong. He would have been the one to blame for ruining someone else’s life, and Chan just couldn’t live with it.

 

So no, he could not change the universe, change the path that some higher being had set out for him and his friends. And for as far as Chan knew, he was the only one from his friends that was able to actually see the connections nature had made between all of them.


	2. Chapter 2

Chan could hear the voices of his friends enter his house before he could even see them. The kitchen table had always been his favourite place to make his homework as it was a place that was close to all the food in his house as well as gave him a comfortable chair to sit in. Chan would never say this out loud but he had wanted to throw his desk chair out of the window more times than necessarily, and he had sworn that he would never sit there for longer than an hour if it could be avoided.

It may have also been that the sunlight that would fall through the window made Chan feel more at ease. It made him feel safe and Chan found himself mindlessly sitting there more often than the others at home.

Now however, Chan wished he was anywhere in his home other than the kitchen. It had become gradually busier in the small room as his brother and their friends entered, and the loud chatter of all the boys made it incredibly hard to concentrate. Chan wondered why so many of them had come home with Soonyoung, but he knew that there wasn’t a reason needed for all the boys to hang out together. Nearly every day they could all be found at someone’s house, which more often than not ended up being their house as it was the closest to their high school. It had its perks, sharing your friends with your brother, though Chan knew that some of the people Soonyoung was closer to were definitely the ones that he didn’t talk to that often. 

There were times where it was more annoying than pleasant, like the times where most of his friends looked at him like the youngest brother - Chan might have been the youngest of the whole group, but that did not mean that he liked the constant babying from everybody else - or the days where he had to learn for a big test and everybody else came over because they suddenly had nothing to do for school. He liked his friends, he really did, but sometimes Chan just wished that they all could stop threatening him like a little kid. Or go somewhere else when he couldn’t be there.

They wouldn’t, Chan knew that. And no matter how often he told his friends that he’d rather not have them around whenever he had to study, the distractions his friends offered whenever they were over wasn’t always as much of a bother as he told them. 

The sounds from twelve boys in one room were distracting and even though Chan knew it would only be for a short while, it didn’t make it any less annoying and Chan just really wanted to get back to studying but his friends unknowingly asked his attention. And so Chan watched them walking around the kitchen, trying his best to not come over as some sort of stalker. 

One thing that immediately asked his attention was the big box Mingyu sat down on the kitchen counter. It appeared that he had baked something again, and nearly all of the boys immediately flocked around him to get whatever creation Mingyu had come up with this time. Chan didn’t judge them for it. Mingyu always managed to make something delicious and even though nobody knew how he did it, everything always seemed to be made professionally. It was just that good. A line was immediately formed behind Mingyu so they could get whatever it was he had with him this time and Chan had to crane his neck a bit to see that it were cupcakes. He didn’t want to admit it but from the sight alone his mouth had already started to water and he wanted one too, but he just stayed seated were he was. If there was one left over for him he could probably ask for it later too. Seungkwan walked past with a cupcake in his hand and Chan only got more hungry for them when he saw them up close. 

The only ones who were not desperately waiting for some heavens food were Jisoo and Jeonghan, busy raiding the fridge, gathering as much bottles of drinks as was possible to take with them. Both of their hands were filled with bottles and Chan wondered if it would ever be possible to hold even more, but both boys proved him wrong when they each held a cupcake as well. Seokmin stood next to them, holding 6 cups stacked on top of each other in each hand, a cupcake stacked in the top one. Seungkwan walked towards them, suddenly with no cupcake anymore - Chan wondered where his had went - and the four of them started talking, waiting for the rest to gather their own cupcakes and other types of food as well.

“Channie.”

Chan looked up to the voice that came from behind him, seeing his brother standing there.

“Hey Soonnie.”

“I’m sorry for all of the chaos,” Soonyoung nodded with his head towards their friends as he said this, “we will leave soon so you can continue studying in peace, don’t worry.”

“It’s okay though,” Chan said, as he actually started to like the distraction his friends offered. “nobody is bothering me, actually, so I’m not minding it.”

“Soonyoung, are you coming?” Seungcheol was looking at him expectedly. Mingyu was handing one cupcake to Seungkwan and whispered something in his ear and Seungkwan blushed at this. Chan wondered where the first cupcake Seungkwan was holding had went to, but knowing Seungkwan he had probably given it to someone else who had been waiting for one as well. “Good luck with studying Chan!”

Soonyoung just nodded as an answer and Chan waved at them as they left the kitchen. It was quiet again, which meant that he could go back to studying. When he looked down to continue reading he saw a cupcake sitting in front of him. 

Huh. 

Chan hadn’t noticed anyone setting it down for him, nor had he asked for one, so someone must have given him one without telling him. Now that he thought about it, it was probably the cupcake Seungkwan had been holding at first. Chan smiled at that thought, finding it sweet how his friend had thought of him. 

“Chan,” Chan didn’t need to look up to hear who was talking to him. Jihoon’s voice was nice to listen to and he could recognise it everywhere, even if he wouldn’t admit it to others. Although Chan had seen Jihoon leave the kitchen with the others, he was there again, so there must be a reason for him to have returned to speak to Chan. “you free this weekend?”

Chan looked up at him as Jihoon asked that. It had been quite some time ago since they all had hung out together, as they all had different schedules and different responsibilities, and it made it hard for them all to hang out. Besides that, Jihoon wasn’t really the person Chan would call his best friend, and Jihoon had certainly never asked him before if he was free.

But Chan was, he had nothing to do that weekend, and he liked hanging out with Jihoon. The elder had a calming presence, one that didn’t need to be filled with a lot of words to be comfortable and Chan liked it. He couldn’t find a reason to not say yes to Jihoon - maybe that the two weren’t particularly close, they never were, but this could be seen as the perfect moment to catch up and maybe try - so why wouldn’t he?

“Yeah, I don’t have anything to do.” Chan paused for a short moment after he had said that, looking up from his maths homework to look at Jihoon. Jihoon was resting in the doorway, his arms slung over each other, the red string around his wrist screaming for attention. Chan tried not to look at it, to ignore the painfully obvious truth they tried to throw in his face, and instead tried his best to focus on the garden that he could see as he looked out of the kitchen window. “What for?”

“We’re planning on coming all together because most of us are done with their midterms.”  
Ah yes, Chan should have known that the rest of the group would be there too, that it wouldn’t just be Jihoon and him together. It stung a bit, to know that Jihoon wasn’t actually interested in hanging out with just him, but Chan could understand him perfectly. ~~If he were jihoon, then he wouldn't have wanted to hang out with just himself either.~~

“I know you still have some tests to study for, but we all would love it if you would come too. Besides,” Jihoon pushed himself out of the doorpost, a small grin on his face. “Seungcheol promised a campfire with good food, which we all know doesn’t have to mean anything, but it’s food so I’m sure you don’t want to miss out on that.”

And it was nice, to hear that they had something planned to do with the whole group but it was even better to hear that they wanted him to be there too. It sucked sometimes, being the youngest and having a complete different schedule, because it meant missing out on so many get-togethers with the rest and even though Chan kept telling Soonyoung, Jeonghan, Seungcheol, Minghao and whoever thought it was okay to bother him and ask him about it that it was okay but

it was really not.

It was lonely to hear about the fun adventures Soonyoung had went on that Chan had to miss, or to sit alone in the canteen because the rest had had their breaks before him. It was isolating to hear the inside jokes Mingyu and Seokmin made that the rest all laughed at but he couldn’t, he didn’t understand what was so funny about it but of course he wouldn’t, he wasn’t there when it happened so why would he even be able to understand it?

They all promised him that they would take Chan with them the next time they will hang out and even though they fulfilled their promises every single time before, it was still followed by a new day of being slightly more isolated from the rest of the group and not being able to understand what they were talking about. At this point Chan has just given up on trying, because he knew that it would be followed by failure. No matter how hard Joshua tried to explain to him what Vernon had said that left the rest doubled over in laughter. No matter how hard Seungcheol tries his best to include Chan in as much conversations as possible. They were trying and it was nice, but it didn’t always work with lifting up Chan’s mood.

So it was nice, to hear that they wanted him to be there. Chan knew that he still had to study for some of his classes but it’s okay, it wouldn’t really matter if he would miss a few hours of looking at the pages of one of his books spread open on the table, trying to understand the meaning of the words that he was reading. He could already hear his parents in his head telling him that it’s good to go out with friends sometimes, so he wouldn’t be coped up in his room - he was not, he always told them but they wouldn’t listen - studying all the time.

“That’s,” Chan struggled a bit trying to find the right words to answer Jihoon, because he wanted to show his gratitude for thinking of him, but words were hard to use and he didn’t know how he should do it without saying something wrong. “that’s really nice of you all to think of me. Of course I’ll come!” Chan cringed a bit at this, his words sounding somewhat strange and foreign and wrong for him, but Jihoon doesn’t seem to notice. “Where, uh, where is it?”

The laugh that Jihoon gave him as Chan answered made him look forward to the weekend even more. 

“You know the rooftop of Joshua’s house?” Jihoon said and Chan could only nod, because of course he knew the place. It was one of their favourite places to go to, as Joshua’s house was distant from his neighbours houses, so whenever they would hang out there there was a smaller chance that they would get noise complaints. That, and the view was amazing from up there, which definitely played a huge role in staying there. Chan couldn’t ever get tired of sitting there and just watching. “We thought it was a good idea to stay there this saturday, since nobody has stuff to do during the weekend and we could potentially turn it into a sleepover. Can I tell the rest that you are coming too?”

“Sure.” Chan whispered as he looked at Jihoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter! The past week I was on an introduction week for my study and it was absolutely amazing! I hope that you all like this chapter! Love you all!!


	3. Chapter 3

Chan could vaguely hear the music coming from the building when he stepped out of Hansol’s car, excitement for the evening growing with every step he took towards his friend’s house. He was glad he would be able to do something with his friends again and he just knew the excitement could be read from his face, but he didn’t care. 

“Hey guys!” Jisoo was already leaning in the doorpost, a smile on his face. Soonyoung had later told Chan that the whole coming together had been Jisoo’s idea and Chan was glad for it. He hadn’t known that he had needed the distraction but now that he was actually there he was glad he had agreed in the first place. This would be good for him. 

“Seokmin challenged Soonyoung to a just dance battle which has kind of taken over the rest of the group and they’re now all teamed up against each other,” Jisoo said as he lead the two boys inside of his house and Chan could already hear the enthusiastic screaming and music coming from the living room. “so please don’t get surprised when you’re suddenly forced to pick sides for this.”

“What side are you on, Josh?” Hansol asked as they entered the mess that was once supposed to be the living room. The big couch was pushed aside to make way for a big dance floor on which Mingyu and Jihoon were dancing to something that was supposed to be Wannabe but was mostly them trying to push over each other so the other wouldn’t get any points. The rest of the boys - it seemed like Hansol and Chan didn’t arrive as last as there seemed to be only two boys on each side cheering on - were sitting on the sides, surrounded by bowls filled with different types of crisps and chocolate. Most bags where left disregarded in a corner and loads of blankets were thrown nearly everywhere, and it felt like home.

“I’ve decided to wait until the rest is here, mainly because I want to battle Jeonghan and Seungcheol badly but Jeonghan won’t be here for another hour and he would bring two other wii controllers with him. So now I’m just cheering on both sides.” 

It didn’t take long for the ongoing game to be over with Jihoon coming out as the winner, much to the dislike of Mingyu (‘But he was cheating! How can you win when you’re cheating!’ He said as Wonwoo put his arms around the sulky oversized puppy. ‘Maybe because you were cheating too?’ ‘Irrelevant.’ answered Mingyu softly) and Hansol and Chan were both dragged to opposite sides of the room to join the competition.

“Did you plan this or something?” Chan asked Jihoon who had sat down after handing the wii remote to Seungkwan. “Like, the team layout? Because it didn’t look like Hansol and I really had a choice in this.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Jihoon said, smiling to Chan. “I think Soonyoung and Seokmin had decided some time ago since all of us didn’t really have a chance either. The teams were just this way from the start, I guess.”

Chan couldn’t help but look at Soonyoung at that, who was sitting on the couch behind Jihoon and Chan with a smile on his face.

“What can I say, Just Dance Battles are serious and need proper planning.”

Chan facepalmed at that, trying his hardest to not judge his brother too hard. 

“Please tell me you didn’t sit down for hours to come up with the ideal two teams to battle against each other. Please.”

Chan couldn’t see Soonyoung’s face but he just knew the other had an overly, exaggerated shocked expression, mainly from the tone of his voice and because it was Soonyoung. Chan just knew which reaction was natural for his brother in such situations.

“How dare you! That is so totally not what we did, I cannot believe that my own brother could accuse me of such things!”

Jihoon and Chan just laughed at that. 

“Idiot.” Chan whispered, loud enough for Jihoon to start giggling next to him. It ended up with Chan earning a soft kick to his head from Soonyoung, which only lead to the three of them laughing harder. There were yells and loud cheering and Chan looked up to see Seungkwan completely destroying Hansol in Eye of the Tiger as the last beats of the music came in. Hansol tried to push Seungkwan away as the points showed up and Chan cheered even louder for Seungkwan when he saw he had defeated Hansol with nearly triple the score of Hansol. 

The remote was passed to him and Chan didn’t hesitate to grab it, pushing himself up from where he was sitting. He had to battle Seokmin, who had decided this would be his moment to shine too. Chan just grinned, turning back to the boys on his team.

“How badly are they losing this?” He asked, receiving boos from the other side. 

“I think it’s four against two for us, so I wouldn’t call it very badly losing.” Soonyoung answered, a laugh on his face. “Why are you asking?”

Chan turned back to Seokmin. “Because then I’m letting you choose the song.”

\---------

It turned out to be a smart choice, as Seokmin was predictable and nearly always chose the same songs to dance too - Chan knew it was because Seokmin liked the songs so much that he wanted to keep dancing to them, even if it were the same weird Just Dance dances over and over again - which lead to suddenly everyone becoming super invested as Seokmin and Chan stayed head to head throughout the whole song constantly beating each other’s score but never actually taking the lead. Chan liked playing against others like this, it kept him hyped and he liked trying to guess who had actually won in the end.

This time, however, the whole group was distracted from seeing who had won in the end as there was a loud bang followed by two screams, signalling that some new people had entered the house. 

Namely, Jeonghan and Seungcheol, with the older having tripped over Mingyu’s leg that was lying past the couch - why Mingyu couldn’t just sit like a normal person was something even the gods still wondered about - and Jeonghan lying on top of him looking like he was ready to beat Seungcheol’s ass for tripping and dragging him down with him. 

Joshua stood behind them, holding two wii controllers in his hand and not even bothering to look at Seungcheol and Jeonghan who were now rolling on the ground trying to push each other away.   
“Oh hey Chan, good job!” Jisoo said, taking over the controllers from the two boys to connect the two he was already holding so now more people could play. There was a cry of defeat coming from Mingyu followed by what looked like Wonwoo with a hand over Mingyu’s mouth to stop the taller boy from saying time and time again that it was unfair and that the other team was probably cheating. 

\---------

Time flew by without realising it. After countless games of Just Dance, multiple wii controllers nearly thrown against heads after frustration and defeat and Mingyu constantly repeating that people were very obviously cheating to get the win, followed by Mingyu himself doing his absolute best to cheat in the most creative ways possible to secure a win, Chan only started to notice how tired and hungry he was when Joshua came with about twenty boxes with pizza. 

It didn’t take long for the thirteen boys to move to the rooftop of Joshua’s house to spend the rest of the evening there. It was an unspoken agreement from all of them that the rooftop was the place to hangout late at night and many sleepless nights had been spent up there, looking at the stars, sharing food and playing the most ridiculous games together. Chan liked those moments, because they were filled with worryless moments and precious memories. 

It’s when Chan finally felt like he belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm awfully sorry for the late update! I just started my year in uni and I want to wait a bit til I'm settled down in the rhythm of going to school again before I'm picking up stuff like writing again, before everything goes to shit and I don't want that. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! 
> 
> (And not to worry, I do have the next chapter ready already :) )


	4. Please read

Hey guys, gals, and non-binary pals!

 

As you can see, this is not a normal chapter, and it pains me to come here and tell you all about why this fic is suddenly marked as 'finished', or why I made the decision to not continue writing this fic anymore. Perhaps you were a fairly new reader of this fic, or perhaps you started reading this when it came out and had forgotten about this. Regardless of what kind of writer you were, I want to thank you regardless. You made this whole experience so much better.

 

I have come to the decision, however, that from now on I'll stop writing fanfics about real people, which sadly means that I will also stop with this fic. For the past few weeks I slowly detached myself from reading and writing these fics, and I just don't feel comfortable personally with writing them anymore. I hope you enjoyed this fic regardless of that, and I, again, want to thank you so much because of your support, whether that was visible for me or not. It truly pains me to make this decision, but I can't find enjoyment in this anymore, and it feels wrong to me to try and keep up with it when it doesn't spark me joy anymore. I will keep up these fics, however, so you can still read them if you want to. But from now on my focus will shift towards fanfics including fictional people (I've recently started writing a [spiderman fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17923709), maybe you're interested in that? If not, than that's okay as well of course!) as well as original work, together with all of the work I have to do for university.

 

I want to thank you all again for this wonderful experience, and I hope that your life will only bring happiness to you. 

Thank you for bringing some happiness to my life as well.

 

Vera 

 

p.s. yes, perhaps you recognise this message from some of my other works as well. I'm so immensely sorry that I couldn't give every fic a personal thank you note, but I want you all to know that despite the fact that I'm using these same words for my other fics as well, it doesn't make them any less true. I just can't really think of anything else I want to tell you without crying (yeah I know I'm a sap that cries easily). Please know that this was such a hard decision for me to make and that I don't want to come off as insincere about this. Writing these fanfics gave me so much joy back when I started, and to realise now that they don't anymore is weird, and hard to accept for me as well. I don't know how often I'll say this, but I am so incredibly sorry and so incredibly thankful for you all.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all like the first chapter! Come talk to me on my twitter or cc what you think about it!
> 
> twitter: @sweetyeojinnie  
> cc: @sweetyeojins


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